Nevada County picayune., 1887-08-18
W. [. T. U. DEPARTMENT.
What becan of it.


 rhapsody on q jug of whiskcy which has been going the rounds of the secular press, is told in the sug- gestive letter:
 My Queer Colonel:-It leaked ou: that yon once sent q jug Ot whiskey to friend, labeled with this rhapsody of praise to his enc. my:
 "I send you some of the most wonderful whiSkey that ever drove the skeleiO1 from he least. or painted landscapes in the bra'n of man. It is the mingled souls of wheat and corn. In 1t you will find the sunshine and the shadow that chased each other over the billowy fields, the breath of June, the carol of the lark, the dews Ot night. the wealth of summer, and autmn's rich content, all golden with imprisoned light. Drink 1t, and you will hear the voice "r men and maidens singing the "iiarreSs home" mingled with the laughter of children. Drunk it, and you will feel within your blood the star led dawns. the dreamy, tawny dnsks of many days. For forty years this liquid joy has been within the happy slaves of oak, longing to touch the lips of man'.
 Doubteess, Colonel. yOn will be glad to learn what became of 1t and him. Well, believing you, he drank of your jug-drank till "the skeleton that took fright at the 1 feast.n stalked in and grlmly sat down at his fireside; drank hll the dewy landscapes that had mellow ed the walls of his home were pll- fered and pawned to paint your arid " landscapes in his bra'n.' You told him it was the mingled souls of wheat and corn;' and he drank till it stole away the last reluctant kernel garnered for grow inc children. drank till "the min. oled souls" of lust and famine drove out the soul of love and plenty, and barred the door against return of hope!
 He'd "find in it sunshine" you 1 told him; yet he found only shad' ows there shadows that were slimy skins and snaky arms, and "chased each other" in maudlln wrath at noonday, and turned many perfect days 70 "tawny dksks;" ''cl,ased "your friend rom the old arm chair to the hard olo bench in the garret, and close be- side him "chased' the loving wo- man with the broken soul, her pinched young John and little stay inS Mary, So, too, in it he found not your pansy ''breath of June the carol of the lark, and the dews of nisht' that kiss the coming corn but the frosted sbivers of Decem- Der. the bark of the wolf at hlS door. and the fetid damp of the night of despair.
 Then you sang to him of the "wealth of summer and autumn's rich contents" that should twlhe the neck of your bourbon challce; but your song clad his summer in pauper life, and twined his leafless autumn to a winter ''imprisOned'' in darkness.
 But still the friend of your tas' cinating hatred drank on till, in the dark rum-cellar and the craw- ling saw dust, he listened for your "Harvest home," and caught the cry of the curse-yOur ''men and maidens" chilling blasphemy of the Master, and hawking loud their vendable shame with becom, ing bnrst of unclean melody. Why sir! he drank till the heavenly laughter of little children round his knee gurgled into restless moaning died into the dying child's whispered wall for bread!
 Drank? Yea, fast and deep he drank your dreamy" portin of, till deep and fast "within his blood V he felt" never "star-led dawn" but forever the setting of the sun of hope-a sinking, toward the midnight without a morning; into the tarrymg.place of the drunkard the damnaton that's endless in it's desolation.
 There, sinking enemy, you'll find your friend. And the days of his adoration before your defOrmed genius being spent, he'll muster courage to whisper you: "False